Regional Director, Enterprise Sales - PNW/Southwest

Overview

You manage a team of Enterprise AEs selling Cyera's Data Security Platform (DSPM) to large enterprises in the PNW and Southwest regions. You're player-coaching - closing some deals yourself, working with your reps on their biggest opportunities, and building out the team as the region scales. You report to the AVP West and spend your time in 1-on-1s, deal reviews, forecast calls, and customer meetings.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Late-stage growth (1,290 employees, expanding regionally)

Size: ~1,300 employees

Growth: Actively hiring regional directors to support "unprecedented growth" - signal they're scaling fast

Market Position: DSPM (Data Security Posture Management) is a hot category. Competing with established players but riding the AI security wave. Customers include financial services, healthcare, tech, federal.

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 30% Inbound - Marketing generates some leads from security conferences, content, analyst mentions. Quality varies - some are tire-kickers, some are real RFPs.
• 60% Outbound - Your AEs are prospecting into target accounts (F1000, healthcare systems, regional banks). Lots of cold calling CISOs, DPOs, and security leaders.
• 10% Partners/Referrals - Some deals come through AWS/GCP/Azure partnerships or existing customer referrals.

SDR/AE Structure: AEs are mostly self-sourcing in enterprise. There's some SDR support for high-priority accounts, but your reps are expected to build their own pipeline.

SE Support: Shared SE pool. You fight for SE time on your biggest deals. SEs are technical - they demo the platform, run POCs, and handle security questionnaires.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: BigID, Varonis, Microsoft Purview, Normalyze, Securiti - DSPM space is getting crowded.

How They Differentiate: Cyera positions on AI security capabilities and speed/scale of data discovery. They claim better classification accuracy and faster deployment than legacy tools.

Common Objections:

• "We already have DLP/Varonis/Purview"
• "DSPM is nice-to-have, not need-to-have"
• Budget gets reallocated to other security priorities (EDR, SIEM, etc.)

Win Themes: AI governance requirements, cloud migration driving data sprawl, compliance (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA), board-level data breach concerns.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Coaching/1-on-1s (30%) | Deal Work (30%) | Hiring/Admin (20%) | Forecasting/Internal (20%)

Key Activities

• Weekly 1-on-1s with AEs: You're reviewing their pipeline, coaching on deal strategy, and troubleshooting stalled opportunities. You're teaching them how to multi-thread and navigate procurement.
• Deal reviews and calls: You jump on calls for strategic accounts - either to help close or to keep the deal moving. You're talking to CISOs and VPs of Security about data risk and compliance.
• Hiring: You're interviewing candidates, selling them on Cyera, and ramping new AEs. The company is growing fast, so you're constantly backfilling and expanding headcount.
• Forecast calls: Every Friday you're on a forecast call with West leadership. You're defending pipeline, explaining slippage, and committing to numbers.
• Internal coordination: You're syncing with SEs, SDRs, marketing, and product. You're pushing for more resources in your region and advocating for your team.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• Long, unpredictable cycles: Security deals take 6-12 months. Budget gets pulled, priorities shift, champions leave. You're constantly managing slippage and explaining why deals didn't close on time.
• Resource competition: You don't have dedicated SEs. You're fighting other regions for SE time on your deals, which slows things down.
• Team pressure: Your AEs are grinding on outbound. Some will struggle to hit quota. You're coaching people out and replacing them while trying to hit your team number.
• Forecast accuracy: Leadership wants tight forecasts, but enterprise security deals are hard to predict. You'll commit to deals that slip and miss by 20-30% some quarters.
• Travel: PNW and Southwest is a big territory. You're flying to Seattle, Denver, Phoenix regularly for customer meetings and team offsites.

What Success Looks Like

• Your team hits 90%+ of quota consistently
• You promote 1-2 AEs to senior roles or leadership
• You close 2-3 strategic deals yourself ($500K+ ACV)
• Your pipeline is 3-4x quota with accurate stage progression
• You build a reputation internally as a strong coach and operator

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• CISO / VP of Security (economic buyer)
• Data Protection Officer / Privacy Lead (champion)
• Cloud Security Architect (technical evaluator)
• GRC / Compliance team (influencer)

What They Care About:

• Compliance risk: GDPR fines, HIPAA violations, state privacy laws. They need to know where sensitive data lives.
• AI governance: Boards are asking about AI risks. They need to show they're securing data used in AI models.
• Audit readiness: They're getting hammered in audits for not knowing where PII/PHI is. Cyera helps them answer "where's our data?" questions.
• Cloud visibility: Data is sprawling across AWS, Azure, GCP, Snowflake. Legacy tools can't keep up.
• Breach prevention: They're terrified of being the next headline. Data security is top of mind.

Requirements

• 5+ years managing enterprise sales teams, preferably in security or infrastructure software
• Track record of hitting team quota in a high-growth environment
• Experience selling to CISOs and security leaders at F1000 or similar enterprises
• Comfortable hiring, coaching, and managing out underperformers
• Ability to player-coach - you're still closing deals yourself while managing
• Based in or willing to relocate to PNW, Colorado, or Arizona (remote with travel)
• Familiarity with data security, DSPM, DLP, or cloud security is a plus